


Preparation

by HerbertBest



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyfidelity, Romance, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 15:16:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21499396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: Brian's anxious.  He wants to be the best boyfriend possible for all three of his lovers, but time and anxiety are factors.Thankfully, he has three people in his life who're willing to hold him up no matter what.
Relationships: Arin Hanson/Brian Wecht, Dan Avidan/Brian Wecht, Dan Avidan/Suzy Berhow/Arin Hanson/Brian Wecht, Suzy Berhow/Brian Wecht
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16
Collections: Game Grumps Holiday Exchange 2019





	Preparation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SalamanderGoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalamanderGoo/gifts).



Preparation is important.

Brian learned that lesson at the knee of his father when he was a little kid, watching him work behind the counter at the family store. Always be prepared, son, he would instruct Brian. Always be ready for the unexpected. You never know what you’re going to have to deal with a curveball.

For his father, a curveball was a customer returning a pair of carefully tailored pants, or rejected a hemmed jacket. For Brian, it involved worrying for an entire week that he’d forget to get there on time for his lunch date with Suzy and she’d never speak to him again. Or cast some sort of spell on his dick to keep it from ever functioning normally again.

Not that he actually believed in magic, white or black. 

Also important – making sure every person he was dating got enough quality time with him alone. That meant doing things with Dan that didn’t involve drawn-out debates about the band, and spending time with Arin that didn’t involve discussions about the tour they were going to be doing together. And being with Suzy in a way that didn’t involve 

Plus his daughter. Plus his wife. Plus his intellectual persuits.

Somehow he also managed to slide lectures and songwriting into his schedule.

That he had any free time at all was proof that his father’s belief in preparation was correct.

**

This was embarrassing.

He never had panic attacks – not usually – but here he was, disassociating in a bodega in West LA. 

Thankfully, Dan was there, and he knew enough to get Brian a big bottle of water. Though Brian didn’t plan on being outwardly grateful in his presence for a very long time. He didn’t want to appear desperate, after all.

Dan pressed his huge hand against between Brian’s shoulderblades. Somehow that warmth laced right through Brian, warming his bones, making it easier to breathe, ceasing the panicked hamster circling of his worried emotions. 

Dan’s palm was spread open against his shoulderblades. “Bri, put your head between your knees.”

“Are you okay, baby?”

“Yes. It’s a long story.”

Dan watched him with those wide, kind eyes of his – making Brian feel even more like he was a helpless, floundering thing. “You get panic attacks. I know you get them, and it’s no big deal – or it wasn’t when we were just friends.”

Brian shook his head, offering up a toothy grin. “Ahh, the disadvantage to polyamory with friends. We’ve seen one another at our worst and now we can’t unforget it.”

“Brian, I’d never blame you for that. You don’t get mad when I spend ten minutes straightening hand towels in the bathroom or get into a spiral of bad thoughts because the waitress told me to break a leg at a diner.”

Brian shrugged. “Well, I’m all right. Don’t worry about anything.”

“Kenny Loggins! That’s what the new cover album needs!” Dan said.

“I’ll make the jokes around here,” Brian said. But he kissed Dan’s cheek gently anyway. 

*** 

Suzy took one look at Brian when he came through the front door and said, “uh-uh, you sit your butt down while I make you tea.”

“I assure you I’m just fine,” Brian said. 

“You look like you’ve been roughed up by Bigfoot,” she said. Bending to pick up Otto, she allowed Mimi and Mochi to keep circling Brian’s ankles, purring and wide-eyes in their guileless pursuit of petting. He bent over, finally, and rubbed them behind the ears.

“I suppose I’ve been burning the midnight oil at the studio,” Brian admitted. And stifled a yawn as Suzy gave him a knowing look. 

“Kitchen, now,” she said. Brian shuffled along behind her, and sat down where she indicated. While she brewed tea, he propped his stubbly face in his palm, allowing the quietness of the moment to wash over him. 

_You should be taking care of her,_ a tiny, annoying voice said in the back of his head, but Brian forced himself to tune that voice out. He wanted to be a good boyfriend, but if he wanted to be whole again. So he let Suzy make him tea and drank it down. By the time she got him into the sofa and found a documentary about the Large Hadron Collider on the Science Channel, he felt like a real live person – a sleepy person but a living one none the less.

She settled in beside him and snuggle up. “You need to stop working yourself so hard,” she said with a yawn of her own.

“I’m a perfectly functional adult who knows his limits,” Brian insisted, while letting his eyes drift closed. She had a blanket around the both of them and up to his chin in two seconds.

There were, Brian decided, as cats nestled themselves around him, worse places to be weak.

*** 

Arin was a good listener, which surprised Brian when he realized it. He was pretty good at just sitting there and letting him spew out all of his concerns, the built up angst and frustration. And there Arin was, being his wonderful self, letting Brian cry it out – or angst it out – whenever he felt like it.

Arin was a practical solution person. If Suzy’s response to his angst was to beat the angst to death and Dan’s reaction was to gently comfort him until it went away, Arin’s was to help him talk it out until he felt better.

“And can I help you?” Arin asked, his arms and legs wrapped around Brian’s trunk. “I’ve got all the money in the world, all the time. Would you like me to do something?”

Sometimes Arin couldn’t do anything, but that was all right. He didn’t have to take care of everything. 

He had three people to lean on. Through thick and thin and rain and shine – and in their own ways – they’d have his back just as often as he’d have theirs.

Brian was a preparer. And while some things in life couldn’t be prepared for, it was fun to flail along beside people who had no idea what they were doing either.


End file.
